After two years of restoration, the 1953 Allis-Chalmers WD45 tractor and plow trekked to Naper Settlement.
The tractor was in need of some serious rehab, which included cleaning, maintenance, and restoration of the original paint color.
And for Naper Settlement, the restoration of this little orange tractor represents something bigger to the community.
“We are an agriculturally based community, and it’s important for us to not forget about the agricultural past,” said Louise Howard, the Chief Curator at Naper Settlement. “Naper Settlement is looking to the future in terms of more involvement in sharing that agricultural story, and this equipment and pieces like it along with a threshing machine will also be represented in that story of agricultural past.”
That threshing machine, along with the tractor and plow and other equipment, will eventually be displayed in an agricultural interpretive center the settlement hopes to build in the coming years.
The tractor and plow will soon be put into a storage facility for the winter.
Naperville News 17’s Christine Lena reports.
